Well....why don't think positive? We will have more options and they are better options..not just any vapourware.......besides I agree that rpices will cut down but at the same time advertisers will also increased.

Whoever...Adsense, YPN or MSN AdCenter.....they NEED publishers at the end.

I'm actually sick of hearing about it already, it's worse than the endless "COMING ATTRACTIONS" trailers at the movies that in many cases are more interesting than the actual movie itself.

None of them have said a stinking thing about network quality, whether YPN or MSN will not permit the masses of garbage sites to join. Whoever plays this trump card first will probably get my vote as Google doesn't seem to care how bad the AdSense violations are at this point, they seem to be blatantly ignoring the worst of the worst sites reported.

But equally as importantly they need advertisers. I would say that a good majority of the internets advertisers use G. Most people will eventually split advertising between networks, as many already do beetween Y and G.

It's hard to look at this from a positive angle... it really stinks, but the more one network dominates - the better it is for the publisher.

When enough peoples advertising costs outweigh their conversion profits, the publishers will end up getting the shaft - from 3 networks.

I remember being impressed with 17 cent clicks with other programs as many as 7 years ago. One very popular CPC program paid 10 cents per click.... but we were happy.

one thing to keep in mind is that PPC is very different than other types of advertising. on a TV ad, for example, an advertiser pays a set amount of money for one or more 'spots'. their return on investment is just a guess at best.

in PPC, most advertisers know their ROI immediately. note that i am not talking about CPM type ads, but rather CPC ads.

imagine your typical advertiser who gets $20 for every $10 they spend on PPC. their limitation is not their marketing budget, but rather the number of clicks that google can provide. if another PPC player throws its hat in the ring, and could deliver more clicks, then advertisers with positive ROI would pursue BOTH networks.

in other words, advertisers who have a positive ROI (which i assume is the majority of PPC advertisers), would gladly throw more and more money toward any network that could continue to deliver positive ROI.

Adcenter is still far from going public. It will initally be used on MSN group of site where it will serve ads based on age, sex, location etc from Passport information which we use to sign on MSN sites.

It will take years before MSN or Yahoo really penetrates this market. Google has a grip, MSN/Yahoo would have to jump through hoops to get publishers to switch. Another sleeping at the wheel opp at MS.

If you believe that CPC will go dowen please reason out your thoughts as to why.

1. I also believe PPC is not a zero sum game.

2. I use adwords and yahoo. My limitation is the number of clicks I can buy. Not budget to buy them.

3. these systems all use some sort of auction variation to price the CPC. To force that down to attract advertisers is to force publishers away.

4. as usual the poor quality publishers will suffer as advertisers have more choice.

5. the quality publishers will do much better as 3 networks try to get them onboard.

There is more but its early and I got to take the kids to school.

On a general note, the market is expanding rapidly, so even rubbish publishers such as myself can make a reasonable living. But I am working hard to climb the quality ladder, launching new sites with value, ect. The BIG SQUEEZE will not come now as the market explodes in size, it will come when the market levels out. I do not claim to know when that will be, but I bet that quality will withstand the squeeze.

My guess is that MSN and YPN will be more stringent on their acceptance standards, attracting higher quality websites. Google will be known as the content network for trash publishers unless they follow suit.

I think the market is very volatile, much more than in other markets. It's very easy for publishers to move your ad code from Google to MSN, and that's why I don't see that Google "has a grip" in the market. Remember Netscape? They had once a grip in the market, too. Within a few months, this could be gone. It just takes a few publishers shifting to MSN.

In addition, the target group (i.e. end consumers eyeballs) does not care about whether an ad is served by Yahoo! or Google or MSN or any other ad network. To them, just the relevancy of a product ad is important. When I am looking for a car on a car review site, showing ads for digital cameras probably will not generate clicks. However, an ad for a car from the brand I am looking for might very well generate clicks.

So, number 1 priority for end consumers is relevancy.

Google is quite well at ad targeting today (at least on my site), so the competition will have a hard time to get their systems up to this standard. But its far from being impossible.

Next is the quality of the ads. If I click on the ad for a certain car, but I get transported to a Made-For-Adsense (MFA) and/or scraper site or for a completely different widget, I will probably be disappointed, hit the back button and most likely not click an ad in the near future (regardless of the ad copy).

Number 2 priority for end consumers will be consistent quality of the landing pages.

Google actually does not care that much about the quality of the landing pages. There are MFA sites, sites without content, and what have you. They just see the money which is okay. Other programs will most likely be the same.

Finally, the third component to a successful ad system is the quality of the publishers. THIS is were competition will help publishers and advertisers ultimately! As long as we are stuck with systems that happily accept garbage publishers as part of the programs, there will be no need to create higher quality sites (and consequently, higher quality clicks). It's the oldest law of sales. If you incentivize garbage, you will get garbage. If you incentivize quality, you will get quality. As long as publishers are not incentivized for quality, there will be MFA/scrapers. And quality publishers will see no higher payouts regardless of their quality content. So these guys will seek other ways to monetize their traffic or stay with their existing ad system (why shift?). All this changes if a program is available that sells QUALITY leads to the advertisers by incentivizing quality content. Imagine a system without MFA/scrapers. Advertisers will see a higher ROI from their ads and they'll get quality leads. They will shift their budgets to this new quality network due to its quality, avoiding all the junk sites that just rip them off. And they will probably be paying more because they get less garbage and better leads. More money to be made for the mediator and the publisher! (This is what we have been trying to tell G all the time in countless threads here.)

Well, this is where Google (and -as I understand- Yahoo! as well) are very very weak. If MSN is smart enough to make a difference, they'll watch closely the quality of the sites AND offer tools to publishers to fine tune their offering (e.g. minimum price for ads, excellent statistics). In a first step, advertisers will benefit from this, and subsequently the publishers will benefit as well.

So, all-in-all, competition is a VERY good thing to have in our market, and I am looking forward to it. For some publishers, revenues will rise, others will see revenues dropping like a stone. It depends how the new players approach the market. Just keep in mind, there's no need for another Adsense that incentivizes garbage.

> If MSN is smart enough to make a difference, they'll watch closely the quality of the sites AND offer tools to publishers to fine tune their offering (e.g. minimum price for ads, excellent statistics). In a first step, advertisers will benefit from this, and subsequently the publishers will benefit as well.

MSN don't seem to have been very smart so far but better statistics would be a nice feature. I'm not sure about where the minimum price for ads is a good thing as it makes the market less dynamic.

My main worry about Microsoft is their control freakery and their willingness to leave their partners stranded if it suits them. They are also not very hot on innovation, for the last few years just copying every fad that seems to work. In short, I trust them a lot less than Google. They are not a company born of the Internet just a large rapacious bottom feeder trying to hoover up any revenues they don't already own.

First of all, if a new ad program wants to attract publishers, they have to face the fact that they are probably looking at existing Adsense publishers. They have to lure the publishers away from Adsense (and they don't want to get the ones booted from Adsense.) So, if you are a publisher and are considering a contextual ad progam, then chances are high that you are already an Adsense publisher. And that you are more or less happy with Adsense.

Thus, a new program has to be not just DIFFERENT but BETTER. If it's just the same as Adsense it will take a lot longer to gain substantial market share (let alone become market leader).

Better could mean any or all of these - 1. better payouts (i.e. higher revenue share) 2. higher revenues (in absolute $) 3. more stabile/predictable income 4. improved business transparency 5. improved statistics 6. better treatment (e.g. as business partner) 7. more control for publishers and advertisers

We have to keep this in mind when talking about AS competitors.

I'm not sure about where the minimum price for ads is a good thing as it makes the market less dynamic.

Then don't make it a mandatory feature. Give publishers the option to use it, e.g. two radio buttons, one says "automatic pricing", the other says "minimum price:" and a text box for the price.

Some publishers will use automatic pricing, others will use minimum pricing - and may complain later that this did not work out for them. I can see the "minimum pricing did not work for me" threads popping up. But the publishers were given the CHOICE. With Google we (as publishers) do not have any choice, hence there are so many conspiracy theories and fears of being ripped-off. It would be very easy to get rid of such complaints by giving more control and transparency to publishers (and advertisers). This will create enough dynamics to get the ball rolling.

My main worry about Microsoft is their control freakery and their willingness to leave their partners stranded if it suits them.

I don't see the difference to Google here. They can terminate the contract anytime ("leave you stranded"). They do not provide you any decent information on the prices of the clicks. They don't provide you any information on the ads running on your site, when which ads were clicked. Come on - can it get worse?

They are also not very hot on innovation, for the last few years just copying every fad that seems to work.

Okay, this is a valid point. Is M$ able to come up with an IMPROVED contextual ad program? Hard to tell. I know some guys working in Redmond, and I know that they are brillant. M$ surely has the potential for a cool program. But, yes, I agree, they have not used this potential in other areas in the past.

In short, I trust them a lot less than Google. They are not a company born of the Internet just a large rapacious bottom feeder trying to hoover up any revenues they don't already own.

Well, maybe I am missing the point here, but, erm, I guess the times were Google was singing the "do no evil" song are over as well (just think of the recent Copyright discussion over Google scanning copyright protected books)... Do no evil?

If it lasts, having 3 players (G, Y, MSN) in the ad brokerage market will cause the market to change in many ways; hard to predict all of the effects, but my hunches/guesses are:

1. cost per click won't grow as rapidly, or will decline slightly as advertisers discover more places to advertise and more ways to avoid bidding wars

2. payout share received by small publishers will increase as the brokers fight for market share

3. at least one of the brokers will impose minimum quality standards for both advertisers (relevance/landing page quality) and publishers, in an effort to create a stronger brand, thereby encouraging a degree of brand loyalty for quality oriented users, advertisers and publishers.

I don't thing any network will impose any quality standards above and beyond what google does today. The main reason being is that the system works with poor quality publishers and thus makes money.

Scraper sites are the highest converting sites for the sites I advertise on adwords. I wish I could set my adwords to put my ads only on search engine and on scrapers. Informative "authority" sites convert the least in my campaigns.

I think their measure of quality is different from the search engine's measure of quality in that their main measure is CTR and ROI for the advertiser. If CTR and ROI is high then everyone wins except for the search engine user.

With that said, I think compitition will mean higher payout to publishers with a lower cpc for advertisers. They have to do both in order to compete in this market.

My guess is that MSN and YPN will be more stringent on their acceptance standards, attracting higher quality websites. Google will be known as the content network for trash publishers unless they follow suit.

That would make sense in theory, since Google has already won the contest for raw market share, but there's one big problem for MSN and YPN: having a large enough advertiser base to allow wooing quality publishers away from AdSense. Google has a huge head start, and it's unlikely (for example) that MSN or YPN could deliver ads for keyphrases like "Elbonian kayak cruises" or "toenail clipping craft kits" right out of the box. (I saw this phenomenon when I tried AdSonar a while back--Google could deliver target ads for many or most of my subniche travel pages, but AdSonar could deliver only generic ads for Expedia and Orbitz.)

I suspect that MSN and YPN will make an aggressive pitch for high-traffic "premium publishers" that can deliver a lot of undifferentiated traffic, and they may win some converts among megasites (as Yahoo has already done) by offering financial guarantees, touting an ability to target by category or demographics, etc. But they're going to have a tougher time recruiting niche publishers who are doing well with Google and don't want to risk their incomes by switching from a known quantity to an unproven network that's trying to play catchup.

Scraper sites are the highest converting sites for the sites I advertise on adwords. I wish I could set my adwords to put my ads only on search engine and on scrapers. Informative "authority" sites convert the least in my campaigns.

In the AdWords forum, quite a few advertisers have reported the opposite experience. (Which obviously is why blocking was introduced.)

I think content quality is likely to become even more important as a differentiator in the months and years ahead--especially as contextual networks like AdSense expand into mainstream advertising (as AdSense has already begun doing with site-targeted CPM ads). Quality of content, audience, and leads tends to go hand in hand, on the Web as in the offline advertising and marketing world.

That would make sense in theory, since Google has already won the contest for raw market share, but there's one big problem for MSN and YPN: having a large enough advertiser base to allow wooing quality publishers away from AdSense. Google has a huge head start, and it's unlikely (for example) that MSN or YPN could deliver ads for keyphrases like "Elbonian kayak cruises" or "toenail clipping craft kits" right out of the box.

Well, we should never forget that IF Microsoft wants to get into something they have their pockets full of cash. They could use it for classical marketing (i.e. paying print publishers to promote the new service/software) or in terms of... extra-ordinary high payouts to incentivize publishers running the service from the first day. At the end, I don't care whether any good ads for "elbonian kayak cruises" turn up, if the money is right. :-)

Well, we should never forget that IF Microsoft wants to get into something they have their pockets full of cash. They could use it for classical marketing (i.e. paying print publishers to promote the new service/software) or in terms of... extra-ordinary high payouts to incentivize publishers running the service from the first day. At the end, I don't care whether any good ads for "elbonian kayak cruises" turn up, if the money is right. :-)

Trouble is, the golden goose might start laying bronze eggs--or very few eggs of any kind--after the incentive period. (OTOH, maybe I'm just skeptical because I used to be on MSN's payroll and saw too many projects and products come and go.)

In general, I think M$ will find it pretty difficult to compete with Google. Certainly, they haven't been very successful in the software market except in situatinos where they have been able to leverage their monopoly power. But, even if MSN doesn't succeed, it could create put some pressure on Google, to the benefit of web publishers.

Also, let's not forget that both Yahoo and M$ are shooting at Google. In general, the chances that the market will become more competitive increase as the number of significant players increases.

But, even if MSN doesn't succeed, it could create put some pressure on Google, to the benefit of web publishers.

I think the real competitive differences between the text-ad networks won't be in publisher payouts, but in what they offer to advertisers. Some publishers will do better with page-targeted contextual ads (a la AdSense), while others may do better with ads that are targeted by category (Yahoo) or demographics (MSN). I suspect that Google will continue to be the #1 choice for small to medium-sized niche publishers, while Yahoo and MSN may do better with general-interest premium publishers, especially those that are big enough to have audience data and whose readers historically don't respond very well to page-targeted contextual ads.

I agree with Ann. the prices will cut down and our earning of curse. the only positive thing I can see about 3 networks competing for their share is that maybe the quality and support of each network will improve for publishers (us) as there will be more than 1 choice.

and us as the publishers will be able to decide where to drive our business, either yahoo, google or msn. we'll have more choices that's one benefit will have. but I dont think well see an increase in our profits.